The crab traps weren't nearly as productive this morning. The first two each had one female, which were thrown back, while the last one yielded one keeper. He cruised with us today in a bucket, and we're hoping he'll have some company before graduating to the stovetop.
We hoisted anchors at 9:30 in the morning and left Cadboro Bay, heading out across Haro Strait towards Mosquito Pass and the USA. As we were rounding the reef at Cadboro Point to head into the strait, Trav radioed that we had some extra smoke or steam coming out of the port exhaust. The temperature and oil pressure were both good, so we backed off about 100 rpm and just kept an eye on it. It eventually subsided to just a wisp or a little more. I can think of a couple possibilities: we've been having overheating problems with the port engine and running a little slower than usual to begin with. I had checked the coolant level and added a gallon while in Victoria, so one possibility is we have a small leak somewhere in our fresh water cooling system. I'll check the level on that again tomorrow morning. I had run the engines for about 20 minutes the night before just to warm them up so they wouldn't be so balky starting this morning, so it's also possible that I got some raw fuel in the exhaust that didn't burn until we got up to speed and operating temperature. In any case, we seem to be just fine while keeping it at 8 knots or below.
Our crossing was uneventful, with seas as calm as you could expect for Haro Strait. The only bump was crossing the wake of an oil tanker that was headed south. We reached San Juan Island and entered Mosquito Pass around 11 o'clock. Our anchorage, Westscott Bay, is right off Mosquito Pass, but we had to pass it up and head on in to Roche Harbor to report our arrival to Customs. In the past we have always had to jockey around and wait 20 or 30 minutes for a spot at the Customs dock big enough for us, so we were both surprised and pleased to see a large cruiser pull away from the dock as we approached, leaving about a 60 foot gap. We pulled right in, tied up and I headed to the customs shack with our papers, including our Customs decal number and our Canadian clearance number. There was only one agent on duty, and two people ahead of me so I had a little wait as they hadn't purchased their customs entry decals ahead of time. He also grilled one of the guys ahead of me on whether he had conducted any business in Canada or purchased anything for resale. The agent was the same guy we've reported through for the past three or four years, and when he picked up Erin's passport he asked me the same question he'd asked in those years before: "How'd you meet your wife?" Last year I told him, "You asked me that last year – don't you remember?", but he seemed a little rushed so I played it straight. After I described our purchases and assured him the Indian carving had no inlaid ivory, he looked at me and said "Mr. Nordby, I believe you're an American citizen who just wants to go home", handed me my clearance number and sent me on my way with no further questions about drugs, alcohol, raw lamb and so forth. We were back out of there in 10 or 15 minutes, and we slowly cruised to the other end of the harbor and the entrance to Mosquito Pass to wait for Trav and Barb, who were not far behind us.
We headed back into Mosquito Pass and into Westscott Bay, the location where we rendezvoused with the Bar-T-Na about 5 or 6 weeks ago. The anchorage is less crowded now, but there are still quite a few crab traps scattered about. I don't have a Washington license, but Trav does, so we set two traps and will check them in the morning.
This evening we dined on some leftovers, and then motored over to the Bar-T-Na for a visit and to finish a domino game started a few nights before. The Barb & Erin team finally won, so they are now entitled to dinner out in La Conner. I'm not sure what Trav and I get for winning the previous matches.
We headed back to the boat around 10 o'clock, in the dark. I had turned our anchor light on before we left, so we had a general target to shoot for, and Trav shined their spotlight against our stern as an additional aid. We enjoyed our night time dinghy ride, as we saw lots of stars out, and behind us was a blood red half moon rising – or maybe it was setting.
Tomorrow's plans are to retrieve the crab traps, hopefully with something more to cook up, and cruise for about 3 hours to Hunter Bay on Lopez Island.
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